


watch not one another out of fear

by wafflelate



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gardens, Alternate Universe - Watchverse, F/M, Konoha Military Police - Freeform, Originally Posted on Dreamwidth, Post-Split (Gardens), Uchiha Clan-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 17:59:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19873744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflelate/pseuds/wafflelate
Summary: As tension between the Uchiha and the village grows, Shikako joins the Konoha Military Police; Shisui shows up frequently with lunch for her for prearranged meetings that aredefinitelynot dates.





	watch not one another out of fear

**Author's Note:**

> Got an ask on tumblr saying:
>
>> _I would really enjoy if you could some cute Shisui x Shikako fluff cause you’re the one who got me hooked on the pairing. Thank you for looking at this suggestion and i’m sorry if I sent this and you’re not taking requests (how do I check that?)_  
> 
> 
> (Please note I am no longer taking requests on tumblr!)
> 
> My original note from Dreamwidth:
>
>> _Uh, I don't know if this counts as cute fluff, but I set out to make a verse in which cute Shishi/Shikako stuff could be written without me having to go super far forward in Shadow Under Water verse. This is post-Split Gardens!Shikako. If "post-Split Gardens!Shikako" means nothing to you, you could read this short explanation of the trope, or just keep in mind that this Shikako came from an alternate universe; the details aren't really relevant at this point._
>> 
>> _The first scene takes place about a year before the Uchiha Massacre canonically occurs. So, Shisui and Shikako are both about 15 and Shisui will have years and years of trailing after Shikako as she fixes everything in this verse to moon over her before they both get a clue._
>> 
>> _Thanks also to the Shisui Agenda who helped me out with this! Uchiha Tokimi, Uchiha Uzume, and Hyuuga Amano are pepperdoken's. Title is from John Donne's The Good-Morrow._  
> 
> 
> Originally posted Dec. 9th, 2018. 

At dinner, Tokimi-baa says, “A Nara girl wants to join the police.”

Shisui and Amano share a surprised glance.

Uzume-ba says, “Well, she’ll probably do better at it than me.”

“Anyone would do better at it than you,” Amano says. “But will it even be allowed?”

Uzume kicks Amano under the table. She also says, “Can the clan even afford it?”

Tokimi shrugs. “Nara girl said she’d talk to her clanhead about it. Shikaku might pull strings from his end, if he likes her. Or if he wants something from us. Stop roughhousing at the table. I think Fugaku wanted to allow it, if only because at this point we’ll try anything.”

Neither Uzume or Amano look embarrassed for their impromptu kicking session under the table.

Shisui had drawn his feet up onto his chair to get them out of the designated combat zone and now wraps his arms around his knees. He says, “I hope she joins. Maybe she’ll be nice.”

* * *

It turns out she’s weird.

But Shisui kind of likes weird.

First of all, they’d been expecting some kind of Intel-oriented ninja, probably someone who’d gone right into an apprenticeship. It turns out she’s actually some kind of country bumpkin, not that you’d know it from literally anything about her. She’s been in the village for less than six months.

Second of all, she has a _lot_ of questions. If she _were_ an Intel ninja, then that would make sense. It would be suspicious as hell still — the clan is wary of being investigated by their own village in the current political climate — but at least it would _make sense_. She asks everyone all kinds of questions, and never seems off-put even by rude or cagey answers.

Third of all, she... takes her job very seriously. She takes the training seriously, she listens seriously to everything that’s said to her, and she turns around and puts obvious effort into learning all of the Konoha Military Police regulations and then performing her duties. 

Shisui does the obvious thing, the thing none of his clanmates have thought to do, and _asks her_ why she petitioned to join the police, what she’s hoping to get out of it, how and why she convinced Shikaku to get the Hokage to bend on the rules about allowing non-Uchiha ninja to join the KMP.

She blinks at him. “Well, I’m not really allowed to take any interesting missions yet,” she says. “And I’d rather not be trapped in Nara Research and Development for the rest of my natural life, so I can’t let them get their hooks into me.” She shrugs, and gestures around the room with her coffee cup. “Anyway, what better way to get to know the village than to work with the people who protect it?”

* * *

The fifth time they meet, Nara Shikako says, “Sorry, I’m sure you know my name, but I never actually caught yours.”

“Oh,” Shisui says. Embarrassing. “Uchiha Shisui. I’m in the field, I just stop by a lot to see Tokimi-baa-chan.” 

She smiles at him. “I noticed. Sometimes you bring a cat.” 

Shisui forgets for a moment that Shikako isn’t clan and says, “The Perp gets lonely when his parole officer takes long shifts.”

“The Perp?” Shikako asks. “Tokimi-san named her cat ‘The Perp’?”

The embarrassment of forgetting that Shikako wouldn’t know is quickly swept away by the delight of knowing that _he_ gets to show her The Perp’s permanent record. “Put that away,” he says, waving at the work in front of her. “We have to go look up the arrest record. Words can’t do it justice.”

Shikako lets him drag her away to the archive room to look at the most frequently pulled record in the entire department: [Uchiha Uzume’s first (and last) arrest.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16755871)

* * *

She’s on the night shift for the first several months — not actually a hazing, but definitely related to her being new. The night shift isn’t _less important_ but it does involve less interaction with the general population, less moving parts. And less people to see Nara Shikako in police uniform before they’re sure she’s going to stick around — “If she leaves,” Tokimi had said in a tone that meant _When she leaves_ , “then we want it to be as quiet and unremarkable as possible.”

Months later, though, she’s still there, still pulling files. Shisui hears that Fugaku offered to see her into the field, or one of the Tower departments, once her initial three month assignment ended, but she’d declined.

She gets transferred to the day shift, much to the general bewilderment of the Uchiha. Police work isn’t _glamorous_ , especially lately. She’ll get no accolades, no special commendations, no thanks for being an officer of the Konoha Military Police, and since she’s not an Uchiha it isn’t like _duty_ is what’s driving her.

“Do you want to be a detective?” Shisui asks her when he finds her spending her break paging through cold cases.

He’s brought her lunch. For no reason. To celebrate her first week on day shift. To make sure she feels welcomed and his clanmates aren’t being mean or weird to her — or accidentally _coming off as_ mean or weird, since out-clan people can never read them right and they’re all terrible at communication.

“I’ll probably go out on missions in the field again eventually, I think, but being a detective doesn’t sound too bad. Reading cold cases is a good way to acclimate myself to things without grabbing a file someone might need.”

She shrugs, and Shisui’s eyes are drawn to the Nara crest sewn into the shoulder of her uniform. That’s new. So he asks about it.

“Ah, Shikaku was giving me a hard time for not representing the clan,” she say sheepishly.

Shisui accepts this, and as he divvys up their lunch — gyoza, she’d said it was her favorite, that her mom used to make it — he’s mostly distracted by thinking that she must be pretty close to her clanhead to be using such familiar terms for him. He’d initially dismissed the similarity in their names a general clan thing, but now he wonders if it’s a closer relationship. _Probably_ she’s not his kid, since everyone would have heard of that, but maybe a first cousin or sibling?

And then she’s lighting up at the sight of the gyoza like she’s one of the crows and he’s brought her a pile of shiney ninja wire and Shisui is too distracted to even ponder her possible status in her clan.

“Meet me for dinner when I’m off my shift,” she demands when they’re clearing lunch away and she’s getting ready to go back on duty.

Shisui hesitates — he’s really not supposed to spend money outside clan establishments for anything as frivolous as eating out for dinner, but the clan no longer has anything even approaching a restaurant that one might bring an outsider to. Even the gyoza they’ve just finished eating had been prepared in an Uchiha house and then packaged into takeout containers left over from when the Mizuhame lineage had had a gyoza shop just off Tea Street. 

“Or we could train together,” Shikako adds, waving an impatient hand as if to sweep away the details. “Or cloudwatch, or whatever. Just, uh...” And now she shifts uncomfortably. “Please say you’ll meet me _somewhere_ to do _something_.”

He didn’t mean to _embarrass her_ by balking at the idea of spending time with her. Spending time with her sounds great. He wonders if she really cloud watches. It sounds boring, but maybe it would be fun with her?

“I’m not picky,” he assures her. “Training with you sounds great. After your shift. I’ll be there.”

* * *

“I don’t like it,” Uzume tells him that afternoon in The Pit.

Amano doesn’t say anything. He likes more information before he voices an opinion, although Shisui knows he probably has one already.

“What’s not to like?” Shisui asks, scraping himself up off the bare dirt of The Pit and standing for another round. “She’s nice. Tokimi-ba likes her. And she’s new! She needs friends. I’m a good friend.”

“You’re a good _something_ , alright,” Uzume says, nonsensically. She’s just being a grump because she’s protective and suspicious and doesn’t like new people.

* * *

Shikako meets him outside the police station still wearing most of her MP uniform. The parts that mark her as definitely on duty, the specific police-issued equipment, that’s gone, but — to Shisui’s surprise — she’s definitely dressed like an off-duty police officer.

Like an Uchiha, really, minus the high-collared indigo jacket.

They walk through the village towards the training fields. On Tea Street, an Akimichi man setting up signs outside the bakery waves Shikako over. He’s only obviously an Akimichi because he has the clan mon on his back and on his business — otherwise he’s clearly a civilian. This is Akimichi Hironobu, who married into the clan less than a decade ago on the strength of his wedding cake. He runs the most popular bakery in town, and Shisui has never been inside.

“Ah, Shikako-san, it’s so good to see you, it seems like it’s been months,” Hironobu says, and the respectful address doesn’t escape Shisui’s notice.

“I was on night shift for this last rotation,” Shikako says.

Sometimes it’s strange how easily she’s picked up the way Konoha ninja talk about things, though she is coming up on almost a year in the village.

Hironobu hums with interest and looks her over again. “I thought that getup looked familiar. I didn’t know they were letting non-Uchiha become officers.”

Shikako shrugs. “I asked nicely and everyone agreed it couldn’t hurt.” She gestures at Shisui and adds, “This is Uchiha Shisui,” as if the man hadn’t definitely pegged that Shisui is an Uchiha from halfway down the block and probably already made up his mind about what Shisui would be like.

“It’s good to meet you, Akimichi-san,” Shisui says warmly — always one for subverting expectations. 

The man says, “Oh, no, please, Akimichi-san is my wife, I’m just Hironobu. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in my shop before — don’t tell me you don’t like baked goods.” 

In point of fact, Shisui _loves_ baked goods of all kinds. He tells Hironobu this, and then finds himself coaxed into describing just which baked goods he likes, and why. He finds himself mentioning that the Uchiha group home — “For our orphans,” he has to clarify for Hironobu — used to get day-old baked goods from the Uchiha bakery that had closed because of the clan’s relocation. 

“Oh, that’s terrible,” Hironobu says, with real sympathy. “I’d be happy to provide day-old goods. In fact, I’ll provide some _fresh_ baked goods for the kids, you just stop by anytime and we’ll organize it.” 

Shisui stutters out a bewildered thank you and then makes clumsily, ineffectual attempts to ward off Hironobu’s further invitation to come inside right _then_ to set something up. The idea is tempting, but Shisui is supposed to be training with Shikako. Shisui gives her a slightly panicked look. 

“We reserved a training field, but I’m sure Shisui will stop by soon,” Shikako breaks in, although Shisui is certain she wouldn’t have had time to do that between now and their lunch together. _Maybe_ she could have flagged a clanmate down to arrange to have one of her clan’s training grounds, but even if the Nara _do_ have training grounds (which is a subject of hot debate in Konoha gossip rings) Shisui knows it’s unlikely that Shikako could use them with an out-clan training partner. With an Uchiha, especially. 

Hironobu backs off. “He’d better,” says the civilian man, with good cheer.

As they walk away, Shisui reels from the easy, unsuspicious nature of that conversation. He’d kind of forgotten it could be like that with people on the street.

* * *

Shisui bounces back to his feet after their first spar, taijutsu only, breathing hard.

Shikako is looking at him perfectly calmly, looking more like she’s been sorting files or reading cold cases than sparring with a Konoha jōnin.

“You,” Shisui says a little breathlessly, “are most definitely under-ranked. Who in their right mind called _you_ a chūnin?”

“I might have held back a little during the evaluation,” Shikako admits sheepishly, as if she doesn’t know that even being _able_ to hold back that much is impressive. 

Shisui means to compliment her but what he says is, “Wow, you’re really great at pretending to suck, then, I guess?”

Had he said this to another acquaintance, to some other Nara, Shisui knows it would be taken as the worst kind of Uchiha arrogance, as Shisui trying to shore up wounded pride after being beaten so easily. He winces right after he gets the question out, knows it’s not going to land as the kind of sharp-tongued joke that Uzume and Amano trade. 

And then Shikako smirks at him and says, “Just pretending. What’s your excuse?”

It’s not even really funny. It’s mild shit-talking at best. But Shisui is so relieved and so surprise that it startles a chuckle out of him anyway, a small but delighted thing.

Their spars become flashier, more complex, as Shisui becomes more and more certain that Shikako can keep up with him. By the end of it Shisui is exhausted but satisfied and even Shikako isn’t looking so fresh and untouched anymore.

“Let’s do this again,” Shikako says, to Shisui’s delight, and they make concrete plans to meet again.

* * *

“I don’t like it,” Uzume says. She uses exactly the same flat tone she’d used before, delivers the sentence exactly the same.

This time, instead of staying silent, Amano says, “You haven’t even met her.”

Uzume whirls to look at him. “ _You_ haven’t met her either,” Uzume says.

Amano raises his eyebrows. 

“You rat bastard, you spied on them and didn’t invite me?” hisses Uzume.

“It’s not like you would have been able to see anything anyway.”

Uzume’s chopsticks reach out and snag a croquette from Amano’s plate. “Traitor. You don’t deserve this. It’s mine now.”

Thus begins a jōnin-level struggle over the contents of their plates.

Shisui edges his chair away from them and looks at Tokimi. “What do you think?”

“She works hard, she obviously respects us, and no one’s had any complaints,” Tokimi says thoughtfully. “Well, there were a few objections to her adding the Nara crest, but I don’t think that that was a such a bad idea, given what prompted it.”

“What prompted it?” Shisui asks dutifully, because Tokimi-baa is the kind of crafty old lady who won’t say anything more if you don’t _ask_ , although this time not even that works.

She just gives him an amused look and says, “I think that’s something you should ask her on one of your little lunch dates.”

* * *

Shisui does get around to asking about it, although _not_ during a lunch date because they don’t _have_ lunch dates. Just... lunch. That Shisui brings for her. Because the police station is really far from everything now, so it’s not like she can go out and buy her own lunch. It’s just a friendly thing to do, especially when you’re going to be asking questions.

Shikako’s eyes are sharp and her expression satisfied when she explains: “I had a misunderstanding with a citizen. He thought I wasn’t doing my job very well and demanded that I take him to speak with my clan head to complain.”

“Oh no,” Shisui says. Because he can see where this is going — he’s wandered past Fugaku’s office when some civilian has made the same request to, well, literally _any other_ Konoha Military Police officer.

“I did _try_ to tell him that my clan head was a very busy man, but he just _really_ wanted to see Shikaku, so I took him up to the Jōnin Commander’s office.” She shrugs, a lazy and predatory roll of her shoulders. “Shikaku thought maybe a slight augmentation of my uniform would keep it from happening again, and Tokimi-san agreed. I think it’s stylish. Shikaku even paid for the embroidery.”

She turns to really show the crest off and Shisui studies it, glad to have the excuse. He hadn’t thought about it before, but he doubts any of the clan seamstresses know how to embroider a Nara crest the way they know how to embroider an uchiwa, since the Nara embroidery pattern wouldn’t have been handed down and perfected for generations, traded from one Sharingan user to another.

This embroidery is high quality. Probably done by whoever does Shikaku’s own clothes. Expensive, in other words.

“I wouldn’t think he’d want the Nara symbol on our uniform,” Shisui says idly, though he’s certainly looking at proof that Nara Shikaku had approved the addition. It could be really bad PR for the Nara.

Shikako sniffs, twisting back to how she’d been sitting before and returning to her lunch. “ _Your_ uniform? It’s the _Konoha_ Military Police, not the Uchiha Military Police.”

Shisui looks up, stomach twisting. “Ah, I didn’t mean to sound possessive about it,” he says. “I know it’s — we serve the village. We all know that. The whole clan is glad to have you on the force.” Actually most of the clan is wary about it at _best_ , but that’s only because they haven’t met Shikako. The ones that have actually worked with her are _mostly_ sure she’s not trying to spy on them, though.

“Uh,” Shikako says. She’s looking sheepish. “Sorry, Shisui, I was teasing. It _is_ basically an Uchiha uniform. Although I don’t know why it’d be a problem for the Nara symbol to be on a police uniform. We wear them with other uniforms all the time.”

“It might be misconstrued as a show of support,” Shisui says, “from the Nara towards the Uchiha.” Especially considering... well, they’re still not _sure_ and it’s seemed too rude to _ask_ , but it’s at least _likely_ that Shikako is main family, of some description, however the Nara organize those things, although the current Nara heir is definitely in Sasuke-kun’s class and hasn’t been disowned as far as the Uchiha have heard.

Shikako laughs into the bowl of curry Shisui brought her for lunch. “No, that wouldn’t be _misconstruing_ ,” she says. She looks delighted — she looks _incredible_ , her eyes lit up, a smile curling her lips, letting Shisui in on a secret. She says, “Of course we support you.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [the sky of the sky of a tree called life](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18525508) by [VagabondDawn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VagabondDawn/pseuds/VagabondDawn)
  * [Orange Nakagawa](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20946791) by [Charientist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charientist/pseuds/Charientist)




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